It may be difficult to imagine now, given the white-glove treatment and handling of the car nowadays, but the “Talk of Paris” Figoni et Falaschi-bodied 1936 Delahaye 135 Competition convertible was built for racing.
It’s the kind of car that defines Thirties French elegance, from the Delahaye name to the ostrich-skin interior to the fitted luggage. It’s the kind of car that dominates concours fields with its flowing streamline moderne lines, its chrome highlights, and its disappearing convertible top. Yet that convertible top, a technological marvel in its day, was intended primarily for speed, according to Ken Smith, who has owned the Delahaye for more than 20 years.
“This was sort of a gentleman’s racer,” Smith said. “The original owner wanted the car to be used in rallies and races, and so he wanted Figoni to make the convertible top as low as possible, to disappear under the trunk lid, so fitting it in there was important.”
Figoni’s Dream
That original owner is something of a mystery. All anybody seems to know about him is that he was a good friend of Joseph Figoni – the creative half of the partnership behind the famed Parisian coachbuilder – that he was a Parisian who had an inordinate amount of money to spend, and that he was named Wolf. He sounds like a character from a cheesy adventure novel from the Fifties, but subsequent examination of the documents associated with this car shows that, indeed, Figoni wrote Wolf’s name on many of its plans, memos, and blueprints.
Figoni, for his part, saw an opportunity. At the time, it was generally accepted that convertible tops simply looked like an afterthought when folded down – bulky, protruding, and not at all in line with the then-current trend of streamlining every aspect of the automobile. To be sure, other coachbuilders and auto designers had already done what they could to minimize the bulk of a stowed top, but Figoni wanted to eliminate it entirely, so he envisioned a mechanism by which the forward edge of the decklid opened up, allowing the top to be stowed entirely under the body and out of sight. The mechanism made aerodynamic sense, it prevented damage to the top when stowed, and – perhaps of utmost importance to Figoni – it allowed the designer to pen long, sweeping lines uninterrupted by the disorder of a folded top.
It was such a novel solution that Figoni patented the disappearing convertible top (French patent 795.769), and when he debuted it on Wolf’s Delahaye in 1936, it apparently caused such a sensation that the Delahaye club members now refer to Wolf’s car as the “Talk of Paris” car.
Performance Bonafides
Of course, it didn’t hurt that Wolf chose to have Figoni build the unique body atop a long-wheelbase Delahaye 135 Competition chassis, number 46864. Delahaye introduced the sporting 135 with its 3.2-liter overhead-valve straight-six the year prior, then in 1936 brought out the 135M with a larger 3.5-liter engine that could be had in 115hp triple-carbureted form. The 135 immediately proved itself in racing, with Competition versions winning the Ulster Tourist Trophy, a fifth-place finish at the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a second- and third-place finish at the 1936 Mille Miglia.
While Smith said the car’s competition history is still being researched, Figoni and Wolf arranged to show it at concours d’elegance events first out of “Figoni’s desire for recognition for his designs.” How the car then escaped destruction or appropriation during World War II is also unknown, though Wolf apparently had the means to hide it away from prying fascist hands. It then appeared in the 1949 Monte Carlo rally after the war and remained in Wolf’s ownership until about 1952. From Wolf, it then went to Jacques Persin, the director general of Facel Cars, who in turn sold the Delahaye to one of his employees, Peter Gargola.
For French Delahaye historians, the trail ended there for decades. “That third owner was still the registered owner in France, so they thought it was still there,” Smith said. Gargola, however, seemed to split his time between France and the United States, and he likely imported it to the United States himself or at the very least made arrangements with the car’s next owner – Pittsburgh collector Earle Heath – to ship it here. While the car had several subsequent owners, Smith said, all of them collectors, and one of whom had it restored at Phil Hill’s shop in California, its provenance as the “Talk of Paris” car got lost along the way.
A Lost Car Found
Smith, who had already amassed a car collection of his own, said he noticed that Figoni-designed cars often took concours best of show awards, so he started to look for one, with his search bringing him to a Figoni-bodied 1936 Delahaye 135 Competition convertible. “I like to have cars that are exceptional in one way or another,” he said. “Little did I know that I would end up having one of the most exceptional cars.”
After agreeing to trade both a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and a Ferrari with some cash on top, Smith had the Delahaye, and he decided to apply to Club Delahaye to learn more about the car. “I sent them the chassis number and got a few questions back, then a few more, then a flood,” he said. Smith and the club’s officers set up a meeting in Paris, during which he not only learned the car’s full history, he also met Claude Figoni – Joseph’s son – and began the process of authenticating the car.
It wasn’t a difficult process, Smith said. The Delahaye’s original engine and drivetrain remained with the car, and its body and chassis numbers all matched the club’s and Figoni’s records. Hill’s shop hadn’t performed a perfect restoration – the Delahaye had been painted a metallic color, and Claude Figoni swore that his father never specified metallic paints – but the visit gave Smith the resources and some of the small parts necessary to start a correct restoration once he returned home.
“Probably the most substantive thing we noticed was that some of the dash control buttons had incorrect labels on them,” Smith said. “But the club officers knew where to find the correct buttons. It was at a small countryside shop in Bordeaux, where a rather elderly gentleman saw what I was looking for, climbed a ladder, and pulled out a box of all original buttons.”
Return to Show Form
Smith then tasked Alan Taylor Restoration with a year-long body-off restoration, focusing largely on getting every detail correct, including a full repaint in bleu foncé. Equipped with a three-inch-thick binder of history and documentation on the car, he then hit the concours circuit, taking – among other awards – Best of Show at The Quail in 2010 and Best of Show at the La Jolla Concours in 2016.
Now that he’s in his 80s, though, Smith said he believes it’s time “for another fortunate custodian” to enjoy the car. To that end, he’s listed the Delahaye for sale on Hemmings.com with an asking price of $12.75 million.
“There’s a very reasonable expectation of winning best of show with this car,” he said. “The completeness of the car – the authentication, the records, all the owners being known, even the complete toolkit – was something the judges always found to be important.”
For more information on the Delahaye, visit Hemmings.com.